Huysmans (Joris-Karl) - Lot 21

Huysmans (Joris-Karl) Ɵ L'Art moderne. Charpentier & Cie, Paris, 1883. First edition (19 x 13 cm). Protective box. Copy given by Huysmans to Antoine Guillemet, Cézanne's friend and the first painter to support him. With various documents about Guillemet, including autograph letters from Guillemet and Alfred Stevens, for the first book on "modern art". "To Guillemet his friend Huysmans". The copy is enriched with : - an autograph letter signed by Alfred Stevens to Guillemet (2 pages in-8°, undated), about varnishing paintings and two collectors (Alfred Stevens, 1823-1906, a Belgian painter and friend of Manet, was the brother of Arthur Stevens, who brought Baudelaire back to Paris after his stroke in Brussels), - a photograph of Guillemet ("collection Félix Potin", with a short biography on the back), - two autograph letters signed by Guillemet (2 pages in-8° with Guillemet's engraved cipher, no place, December 2, 1876; 2 pages in-8° on mourning paper, Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue, September 14) about an exhibition, awards, paintings and collectors, from whom Guillemet claims to be much in demand. Best known today as a novelist, Huysmans was perhaps even more important as an art critic. In his book, which first developed the idea of modern art as we still understand it today, Huysmans revisited his Salons, a series of fairly subversive reviews that ran from 1879 to 1881. Here, in particular, Huysmans summed up Manet's art in a striking way: "Enveloping his characters with the scent of the world to which they belong, such has been one of M. Manet's most constant preoccupations". Huysmans went on to fiercely defend Impressionist artists such as Monet, Caillebotte, Degas, Sisley and Pissarro, as well as Gauguin, Cézanne, Raffaëlli, Seurat and Gustave Moreau, whom he was the first to mention in a critical publication. It was he who revealed Odilon Redon and Félicien Rops. Antoine Guillemet (1841-1918) was immortalized by Manet in Le Balcon, where he appears between Berthe Morisot, seated, and violinist Fanny Claus. He was certainly one of the most important and interesting figures of the Impressionist period, with friendships ranging from Manet to Renoir, and unwavering support for Cézanne. As a painter, he was admitted to the Salon as early as 1865. In May 1882, Guillemet, a member of the jury since 1880, pulled off the extravagant feat of having Cézanne's only painting ever admitted to the Salon in his lifetime. Two years of negotiations seem to have been necessary, and under the work exhibited, the catalog stated: "Paul Cézanne, élève d'Antoine Guillemet"... Provenance: Antoine Guillemet.